She looked at the word then exclaimed: “That’s why I’m attracted to you. It’s your intelligence. I so love your brain.”

“Well,” I replied, “I was hoping there was a bit more of me you liked apart from my brain.”

“Oh there is, there is,” she retorted, “I love the way you say things, I love the way you walk and talk, how you look deeply and sensitively into things, you are so different to the other men I have had in my life.”

I put my arms around her and suggested we play another game of scrabble. I was a bit of an obsessive about scrabble, and she knew it. I could understand why she was reluctant, as she just couldn’t compete with me and got frustrated when I put down a triple point word.

“How about we have lunch,” she suggested, “I’ve had enough of pandering to your superior intellect for one day.”

“Ok,” I said, “I want to read my new Physics Journal, there’s an article on the emergence of quantum physics as a means of understanding the universe.”

“You know there’s a point in me saying your intelligence is sexually arousing, but if you labour it, then it becomes just down right irritating. Balance, remember that, balance, there’s a place for intelligence and there’s a place for normality. We’ve talked about it before, so keep working on it.”

“I can be painful can’t I,” I said thinking I had overstepped the mark.

“I love you with a passion,” she said, “but you have to know when enough is enough.”

As she went off to prepare the lunch, I thought about what she had said. She had as many degrees as me, just in different disciplines, but she possessed what I didn’t have, wisdom and humility.

The older I get, the more I realise there is far more to intelligence than University degrees or honours, its more about the view you have of the world, of yourself and others that makes you connect and understand the world around you instead of believing everything revolves around yourself.

It was then I realised I too was in love with her mind, her wisdom and ability to look past the rubbish I sprouted in the belief that I sounded smarter than I probably was.

I determined to look more inwardly from now on.

Written for: https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/reenas-exploration-challenge-75/